


Recording

by I_am_Best



Category: Bendy and the Ink Machine
Genre: Alice is the hero of her own story, Body Horror, Gen, Mention of Self Mutilation, tags and characters tba
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-14
Updated: 2019-02-15
Packaged: 2019-10-27 20:04:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,255
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17773385
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/I_am_Best/pseuds/I_am_Best
Summary: Alice began her life when Susie died. A beginning full of anguish and horror. A beginning unbefitting of an angel.





	1. Prologue

Susie couldn’t move. She — she couldn’t feel her limbs.

Joey. That bastard. He did something to her. Her rage flared, hot and familiar in the overwhelming nothingness around her. It centered her, though she couldn’t entirely subdue the fear that coursed through her, that made her want to scream.

That was when she discovered she couldn’t.

Susie screamed and screamed, but had no voice to convey it. Who was Alice Angel — Susie Campbell — without her voice? Just shrieking in her own head.

Slowly, as the intensity of the terror waned in the face of exhaustion, Susie became aware of herself, piece by broken piece. She tried to stand, but had no legs. Tried to crawl, but had no arms. She had nothing. She was nothing.

It hurt so much, throbbing like that awful ink machine. Susie couldn’t even cry. She had no eyes. But she was aware. So very horribly aware.

What had Joey done to her? She only had scattered impressions of a conversation, of a deal. This wasn’t the deal. She was supposed to be _Alice._ She didn’t know what she was now, only that she wasn’t herself, she wasn’t Alice.

She wasn’t Alice. No, no. She was. She had to be. That role was meant for her. Joey had  _promised._

Susie lay, heaving in agony, as time passed or didn’t pass, she couldn’t even tell that. Her thoughts whirled and looped with no outlet, no expression. They tangled up in that thrumthrumthrum of pain, liquified into an incoherent jumble, sometimes solidified again into sharp, rage- and pain-fueled memories. She felt like she was going to explode from the pressure inside her mind. It hurt. It hurt. It hurt. It hurt as badly as losing Alice, the worst pain Susie had known.

And she couldn’t even lash out this time. All she had was the darkness in her own head. Susie wasn’t sure she even had a head anymore. She was a pulsating, shapeless mass, burning hot and cold. She was an abomination.

Time passed. Sometimes, she faded in and out of consciousness, but never really slept. Even the reprieve of that was denied her. So her mind wandered.

Alice. She consumed Susie’s thoughts when Susie thought anything at all. She was Alice. She was beautiful. All the world loved her, a bigger star than Bendy, just like Sammy had promised. And when she sang, it was with Susie’s voice, not Allison’s.

Susie loved Alice like nobody else, especially Allison. (God, she wished the pain would stop, even for just a moment, just to remind her that there was more than pain.) Susie loved Alice. She’d dyed her hair, wore golden headbands like a halo and black dresses that were classy but teasing, just like Alice. She’d never felt this way about anyone before, and knew it must look like madness from the outside. And maybe it was. Susie would be loved. She would be beautiful.

She was meant to be Alice. Like Sammy was meant to compose music, possessed by it to the point of carving it into his flesh (she’d called him crazy! She had no idea what true madness meant until now. It wouldn’t stop pounding against her brain).

Joey gave Alice to her, then stole her away. Rage bubbled in Susie, impotent and agonizing. He took her away, taunted Susie with the role, and — and killed her?

Was this what death felt like? An eternity trapped in her own mind. Alone. Unloved. Hideous.

Joey had sentenced her to hell.

  
  


 

 

 

More time passed. She'd tried counting seconds, but with no record to keep it she kept getting lost. But that was fine. There really wasn't much point in counting eternity, anyway.

Susie stopped feeling fear long ago, and now only felt a malaise she couldn’t shake. There was nothing she could do. No way out of this. She prayed for the day her mind would break and she’d stop feeling so much. The pain had become her only companion, thudding and throbbing hypnotically. She wondered if she listened long enough she’d lose herself in it and simply stop existing. No more Susie. No more Alice. No more thoughts jammed up inside her.

Then, suddenly, fear. Dread. An innate terror of something she couldn’t identify. Someone (something?) was approaching. She felt their heavy, slow steps through her mass, felt an icy cold nothingness so much worse than her own condition slithering all around, touching her. Scorching her.

She lurched instinctively. The world around was suddenly so much more solid than it had ever been. There was a floor, there was the presence of a hulking object. There was that thing coming closer.

It terrified her, yet she was calm. Calmer than she’d been in so long. This was her answer. This was her escape. It would suck her away into the void, and she could stop existing entirely.

The vacuum of a presence loomed closer. Susie braced herself for her final death. She wished she could have been Alice.


	2. Chapter 2

She woke up, disoriented, afraid, in new pain in new places. No, nononono, Susie didn’t want to endure this again. She couldn’t.

She opened her eyes. Sight. She didn’t know how to process what she was experiencing, it had been so long since she’d been able to see. Everything was blurry and strange, void of color.

Sound. Sound came next, distinct from her own thoughts. That thud, thud, thud she’d become so accustomed to internally was now externally thumping away, groaning and sloshing. It was the sound of the machine.

The world smelled stale and old, full of acrid ink and mold. A terrible smell, but one she could now identify.

Susie had limbs, had hands. They roamed disbelievingly across her body. It was real, solid. Cold.

She brought her hands up to her eyes. The slender digits were stained black with ink. She didn’t question that, because she  _ had hands _ . Beautiful, flexible hands. Susie touched the floor, felt the hardness of the wood beneath her fingertips.

A sound! Susie jerked around, something on her head bobbed and a jolt of pain went through her as one eye darkened momentarily.

The ink machine clanged and chugged, spitting out globules of ink that made her skin (she had skin!) crawl. Quickly, Susie scrambled away from it, overcome with emotions crashing down on her like waves. Elation. Disgust. Confusion.

She slipped on the ink that coated her legs and dripped down her form, then dragged herself to her feet using a chair and looked around properly. This was the studio, she was sure of it. Only it looked… wrong. Barren. The walls and posters plastered on them had no color. Everything was steeped in a muddy, sickly yellow-brown light. She turned to regard the machine again.

It looked different, too. Like cardboard more than metal, all stained and crumpled. It hung above a great, gaping abyss that Susie wanted far away from. Pipes hung down like limp tentacles, and the machine groaned as though in pain. It was a pain Susie was very familiar with, that still ached in her bones.

She needed to be away. She needed to think. And now, now she finally could.   
  
  


 

This wasn’t the studio Susie knew. It was entirely empty and warped, twisted into a facsimile of a studio. Everything looked more cartoonish and absurd. Ink splashed everywhere, desks stood abandoned, and that sodium light saturated everything.

“Hello?” she called out. “Hello!” she repeated, then laughed. It was wonderful, hearing her own voice again. Hers, all hers. She didn’t even care about how strange things were, right now. She spun around in a circle, arms flung wide. “HELLO, STUDIO!”

But, she was different now, too. Just like the studio. Susie ran to a bathroom. It felt wonderful, her legs pumping beneath her, her arms swinging by her side. She could feel blood rushing through her body, through her heart as it pounded in her chest. Oh, it hurt, but it was nothing compared to before.

Susie was alive.

She found a bathroom and, feeling daring since nobody was around, went into the men’s room. A pipe must have broken because water flooded the floor, and she left a billowing trail of ink as she made her way to the sinks.

Susie looked in the foggy, filthy mirror. No, not Susie. She gaped at the reflection.  _ Alice. _

Her hands rose to touch the horns protruding from her head. Solid. She touched the halo circling through her head, gave it a tug. Pain blinded her. Very, very real. And embedded in her head.

Su--Alice lowered her hands to her face. Her eyes held a glowing golden sheen, and her skin had the same sketchy appearance as the rest of the studio. She was a near-perfect rendition of the character.

Susie was Alice. That was all she’d wanted.

Tears sprang to her eyes, now that she could cry. She muffled them at first, before remembering she was entirely alone in this strange, strange realm. Her hands left smears of ink on her face.

Alice touched her reflection, then pulled away. She wasn’t entirely alone. Something else was here with her. The thing that had… helped her. Killed her. She wasn’t sure which.

She returned to the ink machine. It pumped and thumped. There were two stains of ink on the floor, both she assumed from herself. One had footsteps going out of the room. Alice touched the edge of the older one, its edges faded into the wood itself. How long she must have lain there, pathetic and pulsating. Not knowing there was a world around her.

Now that she had a body, Alice felt so grounded, so calm. She survived the trial by fire. The nightmare was over.

Both had trails leading back to the machine, though she couldn’t get close because of the gaping hole underneath. Alice contemplated its vastness and depth. Nothing like this existed in the studio, last she knew. It would be an impossible undertaking, digging down so deep.

She turned on her heel and strode out into the front area of the studio. A projector was on, click-clacking away as nothing showed on its screen. Alice skirted around that. It made her uncomfortable, reminding her that she was alone. That this place wasn’t actually the studio.

She headed toward the exit. Alice existed, and she was going to show the whole world. She was an angel.

The door didn’t open. Alice tugged a little more forcefully. Nothing. It didn’t even shift.

_ The door wouldn’t open _ .

The handle crumpled in her fist. Metal bit into her skin, but Alice didn’t let go. Nobody would be coming into this studio, she knew instinctively, but she hadn’t thought she couldn’t get out. She hadn’t thought what might lay out there, even if she did.

She ripped off the handle with a frightening ease, and began beating on the door with great, shaking thuds that dented the wood.

“NO! NO! LET ME OUT!” Alice shrieked, dragging inky fingers down the wood, searching for any gap, any weak point she could exploit. “JOEY DREW! WHAT DID YOU DO TO ME?”

Her question devolved into a primal scream of rage. He gave her what she wanted, only to deny her her audience. She’d kill him.

“Sh, sh,” a voice said, and it wasn’t hers. It was her Alice voice. Lower, calmer. “Don’t let him see.”

“Who --” Alice whipped around, as though expecting to find another her. She laughed when there was nothing there. “It’s just me. It’s only me. I’m the only Alice.”

“You won’t contain me so easily, Joey,” she promised the door. “You made me an angel, and an angel deserves an audience.”

Alice retreated from the door, for now. She had an entire realm to explore, and all the time to do it.

  
  
  


Alice quickly established there were no functional exits, no windows even to see what was outside. There was nothing but the ink machine pumping ink throughout the studio. It was absurd the amount of ink that must be passing through those gigantic pipes. Far bigger and more pronounced than the pipes in the studio she knew, spewing ink in great founts across the floors and down the walls.

She touched one almost reverently. Somehow, the machine was to blame for her situation. To thank for her becoming Alice Angel. The pipe was warm with rushing ink. She was so cold. It ached.

Alice pulled herself away. No exit. No escape. At least not right now. She would learn how this world worked, then break those rules. Joey Drew must have thought he’d gotten rid of her, but he’d only inconvenienced her.

But… it was so lonely. The solitude was crushing, especially in a place that she knew as loud, bustling with activity. So many people went into making a cartoon, but here there were only abandoned tables and locked doors.

Those weren’t a problem for Alice, except for the exit. She learned quickly of her new strength, and simply tore open any door that was barred from her. Offices, storage closets, useless empty spaces.

She punched a cutout and it crumpled. She’d always hated Bendy’s stupid, simpering grin. What a feeble character to figurehead an entire studio. Alice should have been the star. Fiesty, sexy, beautiful. She even had something Bendy still didn’t have: a voice. Susie’s.

This floor was dedicated to Bendy, and it disgusted her. She went to the elevator first, only to be confronted by a panel full of gibberish. Alice wasn’t about to press any of those, not knowing where it would take her, or if it would do anything but plunge down and kill her. She could feel the emptiness beneath the floor of the elevator, yawning like a throat.

Instead, she found the stairs. They proved just as daunting, spiraling up and down into darkness impossible in the real world. But there was no other option.

Alice gripped the rickety wooden bannister and took a careful, delicate step. The wood didn’t break. It felt sturdy and solid. She took her next one much more confidently.

She decided to descend rather than ascend. That thing she had felt seemed like it would be below, and she needed to know who or what it was, how this world worked. It would have the answers.

The stairs groaned, and the ink machine pumped, and Alice’s heart beat louder than either of them. The vastness of what had happened was beginning to settle in her. This couldn’t be real, as real as it felt. She must have gone mad.

But the pain, the isolation, the terror. All of that happened. The marks of what Alice endured were still imprinted in her mind. If this was madness or if it was real, it didn’t matter, she supposed. It was where she was, now.

There wasn’t another door until several floors later, and it nonsensically opened into the Music Department. A place painful to Alice. This was where she’d worked, once, alongside handsome, mad Sammy Lawrence.

Now it was silent.

Alice walked halls that were both familiar and not. “Sammy,” she cooed, voice belying the anger that flooded her as she remembered seeing him with Allison. His hand on her elbow, his smooth, deep voice probably telling Allison the same lies he told Susie.

She’d seen it through the glass before, and could see it as though it was happening again. Susie hadn’t been informed of the change. One of the band members mentioned it to her with condolences. She had reacted… poorly. Allison was lucky Susie couldn’t get through the glass to strangle her.

But that was okay, because she was already circling around through the back hall to the entrance. She’d collided with Sammy, who dared put his hands on her shoulders.

“Susie, you can’t come in, we’re recording --”

She tore herself from his grip. “Recording what?  _ My _ lines? Who is that bitch in there?”

“Allison Pendle is the new voice of Alice Angel,” Sammy said flatly. Susie hadn’t quite believed it until it came from his mouth. She’d been replaced. With no warning, no explanation. She hated how apathetic he sounded to the change. “You’ll be called in to record later.”

“You know I’m perfect for Alice, Sammy,” Susie hissed.

For a brief moment he looked pained, but it soothed away under a layer of professionalism. “Mr. Drew decided this, not me.”

She slapped him. Susie doubted he’d even tried to fight for her. “Do you think Mr. Drew will decide to replace you, too, when he finds out about your arms?”

Sammy’s hand flew instinctively to his long sleeve, tugging it down. His expression warred with anger and betrayal. Susie liked that she could pull such emotions from a man known for showing only superior annoyance at best. “You wouldn’t dare.”

“You crossed an angel, Sammy Lawrence.”

“Susie…”

“I’m ALICE!” she yelled, loud enough that she was sure Allison heard.

With that she’d stormed off, a high flush on her face, tears sparkling in her eyes, her hand stinging. But she didn’t cry. She didn’t cry until she was alone, and her Alice makeup ran, ruining the illusion.

She also didn’t tell Joey about Sammy’s scars. Oh, Susie had wanted to, but something kept her from it, something she couldn’t quite overcome. She wanted to make him wallow in misery with her, but even she wasn’t cruel enough to actually wish this pain on anyone else. Perhaps she’d been mistaken to spare him.

Alice knocked several pages from a music stand and watched them flutter to the floor. “Sammy Lawrence, look at your department. It’s decrepit and empty. No music playing, now. How tragic.”

She couldn’t help the peal of laughter that escaped thinking of his precious music laying forgotten and dusty on the floor. It’s what he deserved for just going along with her replacement.

And look at her now. She really was Alice. Unlike Allison Pendle, who was just Allison. She wished Sammy could see her. Let him tell her who the voice of Alice Angel was  _ now _ .

She left the orchestra room once it showed itself to have nothing of any help, and wandered the halls aimlessly, reliving her memories of working here, of skulking around afterwards, resigned to side roles and nothing more. She’d loved being Alice so much. Loved hearing her voice coming from Alice’s mouth.

It was so -- so validating. People loved her Alice. She’d gotten so many compliments from the rest of the employees. She got to hear children sing Alice’s songs.

She’d done good work. Perfect. Susie hadn’t deserved to be replaced.

She’d plotted and conspired to get rid of Allison, but never got the chance to act on any of her plans before Joey had come to her with a new offer. He knew how much she loved Alice, how taking her from Susie was like ripping out her heart.

And here she was. Joey had crossed her again. She’d enjoy tearing him apart. See how he liked it.

Alice clenched her fist, thinking of it wrapping around Joey’s throat. She’d escape.

She just needed to figure out how.

That was when she found the first recording. It sat on a shelf in one of the halls, entirely unassuming, but something she’d never seen before. A sudden wave of longing hit her, and she wanted to hear another person’s voice. Alice didn’t know how long it had been since she heard another human, but it felt like years.

She pressed play.


End file.
